Mission, Vision and Goals

Vision

Educating future Optometrists to be curious, compassionate and community-oriented.

Mission

To support the Optometric profession by educating future optometrists to the fullest extent of clinical scope within an interprofessional and community-oriented environment while providing care to all members of society, especially those who are underserved.

Programmatic Goals

Teaching Goal

Provide a comprehensive and broad curriculum that fully prepares students for contemporary entry-level practice and licensure upon graduation.

Teaching and Learning Objectives

• Implement and assess (through curricular mapping) the changes recommended by the comprehensive curriculum review process in 2016-17 to meet the needs of students and the profession.
• Recruit and retain students with diverse backgrounds to be educated as health professionals within a culturally sensitive and educationally stimulating environment.
• Expand electronic teaching modalities (e.g. Blackboard platform and Lecture Capture) to supplement current teaching modalities.
• Provide expanded opportunities for active student learning through online education, interactive seminars and case-based discussions.
• Enhance on-going support for those students needing tutoring, mentoring and counseling to help them successfully complete the professional program in four years.
• Develop and implement Interprofessional education opportunities.
• Recruit only those applicants with residency training or significant professional practice experience to serve as clinic faculty.
• Recruit the best-qualified faculty while seeking diversity to best compliment the profile of our students and patients.

Research and Scholarship Goal

Provide support and development opportunities to enable faculty to successfully engage in scholarship and to actively participate in research.

Research and Scholarship Objectives

Recruit additional qualified faculty as an ongoing priority to strengthen the School’s academic and scholarship programs.

• Support faculty with high-quality technology resources including electronic, multi-media, scanning and printing services to enable them to teach effectively and engage in scholarship.
• Provide a formalized faculty mentoring program with selected University faculty members to guide newer faculty hires in areas of teaching, scholarship and leadership.
• Provide faculty with related workshops/programs (on-campus or off-campus) to enhance their scholarship abilities and opportunities.
• Actively encourage faculty to submit for internal faculty research grants, as well as federal, foundation, and corporate funding.
• Support selected faculty to participate in national faculty development programs including, ASCO SIGs, the bi-annual AOA/AAO Summer Research Institute, and the bi-annual Summer Institute for Faculty Development (SIFD).

Service Goal

Establish programs to provide eye and vision care services to the public through access and education.

Service Objectives

• Identify the community needs and funding sources.
• Develop mobile service capability to increase access to care and to provide vision care services outside of School-owned facilities.
• Identify and educate assisted living facilities on vision care services and technologies.
• Develop effective marketing and community promotion programs to expand the patient base at the Eye and Vision Center
• Develop collaborative relationships with local health care providers to advance education and patient care.
• Educate interns and doctors on communication with patients.
• Provide outside education to groups such as health care providers, social workers, nurses, and other educators and non-profits to enhance their understanding of the importance of eye health and vision in learning.
• Identify and contract with additional third-party programs and funding sources for medical and vision care coverage
• Expand vision rehabilitation services to support and emphasize geriatric rehabilitation (e.g. occupational therapy, orientation and mobility specialist, grief and trauma counselor, and support groups).
• Implement the Children’s Vision initiative to enable every child in the Worcester School District to be vision-ready to learn.

Patient Care Goal

Create a patient care environment that has the equipment, patient base, and experienced faculty to provide clinical education to students.

Patient Care Objectives

• Maintain current patient care facilities to ensure the good working order of all current equipment.
• Acquire additional equipment that allows for better patient care and student learning
• Expand clinical footprint and patient base beyond Massachusetts and establish vision centers in New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
• Promote the Eye and Vision Center (EVC) locally via marketing efforts to improve community awareness and patients seeking care at the EVC.
• Continue to recruit Optometrists trained in specialty areas including low vision, vision therapy, and medical contact lenses to further attract patients and educate students.

Core Values

The School of Optometry embraces the MCPHS University core values, which reflect commitment to preparing competent, caring, ethical professionals deliver quality health care.

Empowerment – Encourage people around you to be their best.
Refers to measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people. The goal is to enable others, independently or collectively, to have the authority to represent their interests in a responsible self-determined way.

Inspiration – Be a role model
To stimulate in others that each person has the ability to contribute their unique talents to advancing the organization.

Optimism – Carry a positive attitude
To convey to others an expectation for favorable outcomes based on a belief that good ultimately prevails over bad outcomes.

Selflessness – Do what is best for our community of students, faculty and patients
To be guided by actions that will benefit others without consideration or expectation of personal rewards or benefits.

Courageousness – Take risks and plant seeds that can bear fruit in future years
Having self-belief and the confidence to face adversity or challenges without fear

Perseverance – Focus on achieving the desired outcomes
The effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it is difficult